Improvement in extracting quicksilver from sulphur ores



NI'IED STATES PATENT Orrron J OHANN' I. SIEVEKING, OF ALTONA, PRUSSIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN EXTRACTING QUICKSILVER FROM SULPHUR ORES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 150,366, dated April 2' i874; application filed February 21, 1874.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, DR. J OI'IANN P. SIEVE- KING, of Altona, in the Duchy of Holstein and Kingdom of Prussia, have invented an Improved Process of Extracting Quicksilver from sulphureted Ores of Mercury, of which the following is a specification:

This invention has for its object a simple and economical method of separating mercury from its ores; and it consists in effecting this object by the employment of a solution of the subchloride of copper in salt-water, as I will now proceed to explain.

I dissolve in a hot solution of common salt a quantity of the sulphate of copper, and boil this solution; at the same time add to it a little inuriatic acid, or sulphuric acid, and an excess of native copper, (in thin sheets,) until the solution assumes a pale-yellow color. The solution will now contain only a subchloride, it having dissolved an equal amount of copper to that originally contained in the sulphate.

By mixing this solution with finelypowdered cinnabar the following reaction will take place: Half of the amount of copper contained in the subchloride of the same will combine with the sulphur of the cinnabar, and form sulphuret of copper, while the other half of the copper, with all the chlorine, will form chloride of copper, thereby leaving the quicksilver free.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The process of treating sulphureted ores of mercury (cinnabar) with the subchloride of copper, for the purpose of extracting the metal, substantially as set forth.

In testimony'that I claim the above I have hereunto subscribed my name in the presence of two witnesses.

J OHANN P. SIEVEKING.

IVitnesses:

F. W. BUROHARD, J. NAUMANN. 

